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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Earth Day Dreamcatcher!

Recycle. Reuse. Renew. Repurpose. Reduce. These are very important words. I am very proud that my daughter has totally embraced them! Of course, like any 7-year-old, she can take them to the extreme by saving every minuscule little bit to use for some project or another. But, she has the right idea!

This week, she has been working on a project for school using recyclable materials. While working on this project, I got to thinking---we should actually be making something out of materials that are a little less easy to recycle or reuse.

Just the other day, we were punching out some plastic pieces for a new game. When we were finished, we were left with a yellow plastic frame. I looked at it and immediately thought dreamcatcher!

Newly inspired, I looked around the house for some random little things that would most likely end up in a landfill to add to our dreamcatcher. I also scoured my daughter's stash of items to be reused. There are so many items that would work with this project!

I save ribbons of all shapes and sizes from gifts. Some of these you can use on other gifts, but others you cannot. My daughter and I used the longer ribbons to tie across our frame. If you notice in the photo, one of the ribbons says "Care Credit." Now, when else are you going to use that?

We accumulated plastic covered paperclips, beads, pipe cleaners, candy wrappers, and fancy decorations from long ago gifts. Everything we found somewhere around the house. We used some of the items to attach others to the dreamcatcher. Altogether, these castoff items made a colorful catcher.

The project was fun and easy to do! The scavenger hunt for materials was as fun as the assembly! On top of it, we have a festive decoration by our front door!